Out of Pod Experience

Was semi-interested until I came across Andrea Rossi.

The dude is known for bullsh-t claims.

There's a reason solar power hasn't taken off - It's an cost/benefit efficiency dump. Most current technologies convert tiny fractions of solar to usable energy, at very high costs (including environmental costs). Those technologies which do have reasonable conversion ratios tend to use a LOT of land and are goegraphically limited. The enviro-lobby industry doesn't like that.

Geo-thermal would do nicely, if you could face-down the enviro-lobby. It works very well in iceland, but most other places you have to be willing to drill deep, and the plants are ugly, and that's a political no-no.

Orbital powersats empolying microwaves and rectennas have also horrified the shaggy neck-bearded enviro-lobby industry, despite actually being one of the best bets for creating a *useful* and efficient means for collecting solar power...

Frankly, if you want to use solar fusion as a useful energy source, your best bet is to plant trees then burn wood. Or plant switchgrass, then distill alcohol. Of course, to meet more than a small fraction the world's energy needs that way, you'd have to convert much of the arable areas to energy production - Which means people go hungry, then get angry, then start rioting. Use of corn for alcohol fuels is already driving food prices up for the poor around the world - So when you look at the mandated '10% ethanol' label on the fuel pump, realize that your government is helping to make the world's poor even more destitute than they were. But feel good! Because they're not starving in *your* neighborhood, and you're 'helping' the environment!

Feh.

The problem there is that solar panels are crap when it comes to efficiency. Cost-ineffective, in fact. A typical suburban home rig takes decades to retun its installation costs. Large industrial building installations do somewhat better, but still have a lengthy re-pay time. And the panels themselves frequently age out of usefulness before reaching their repayment time.

Plus the materials they use have environmental costs assocaited with extracting the resources needed to make them.

Solar Towers, on the other hand, work. Sure, they're basically another means of using steam, but so what? Their only environmental cost is that they have a HUGE footprint. Which the enviro-lobby hates. And you have to put them up someplace where cloud cover is predictable (doesn't have to be cloud free, but you have to be able to plan, which requires predictability) - Which usually means places that are environmentally sensitive, or places that are prime arable land.

Frankly, we could do a lot better if we ditched the solar panels, and went back to sun-heated working fluids and mirrors on houses and buildings - Use the working fluid to drive dynamos. Simple, effective, and efficient. But it's not 'high tech' or sexy. Inedded, a typical plumber with decent welding and a few elctrical skills could set such an installation up with stuff bought from the hardware store.

Sunuvabitch.
You're absolutely right.

OK, the article cited in the OP is now officialy toilet paper.

Wait what? I thought eco peeps would have loved this, its not on Earth, it removed mining for the raw materials for Earth, it gives a genuine industrial capacity expansion outside of Earth, leaving Earth basically a garden... what's not to love about the idea?

I forgot to say my thanks for that, been reading over it a few times, seems to me we could build the rectennas out at sea ourside the littoral areas where 95% of marine life lives. Don't suppose that would cause any issues with the salt water if they picked the right frequency not to interact with it with the scattering of the beam if my readings correct

AS I understand it, the US has become a bread basket not for itself, but for a signigicant fraction of the worlds population beyond its borders.

If it diverts production to be self sufficient, millions would starve to death. I recall Bill Clinton saying he screwed up by allowing foodstuffs to be traded like any other commodity when the WTO was founded.

If it doesn't violate the laws of nuclear and fusion physics it might work as it's cracked up to, if it does violates them, it won't.

Sorry, but as the American's say, "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch".

If cold fusion was for real we would have cold stars shining as brightly as hot stars.

How do you peer test a paper when the scientists that wrote it have no idea what a critical part is?

Fusion usually happens at (iirc) 10 million + degrees C...

I'd call 860 degrees fairly cold compared to that.